Perhaps I Didn't Make Myself Clear.

I am pro-life. There are hoards of people on facebook accusing me of being pro-abortion. I most certainly am not.

What I AM is a realist. Abortion is legal. There is no reason to believe that it’s going to ever be made illegal. If you believe life begins at conception (which is a completely legitimate thing to believe), and therefore you are steadfastly opposed to abortion in any and all circumstances, that’s fabulous. But the reality is, your beliefs conflict with the law of the land, and likely always will. So your outrage, in other words, is not stopping abortions.

Since I KNOW that abortions will more than likely stay legal forever and ever more, I don’t waste my time hollering about stopping 100% of abortions. It’s never going to happen. What I do instead, is focus on tangible areas where we can make some actual headway on this issue. I hate abortions. I hate the IDEA of them. I want them to be as rare as possible. But here's the message I want to be sure I'm getting across to all of the people who've decided that I'm basically Satan's spawn for my earlier posts on this topic: Getting on your moral high horse, calling me “pro-abortion," stomping your feet and telling me I'm disobeying the Bible DOES NOTHING TO STOP ABORTIONS.

I’m sorry, but that’s a fact.

What could help abortions become more rare is more encouragement of birth control, more acceptance of Plan B options, more “give” on when abortions can be performed, and more acceptance of REALITY. I don’t know how to stress this any more – ABORTIONS ARE LEGAL. Your outrage will not stop that. Calling me pro-abortion will not stop that.

When I say that in the context of abortions, life starts with the beating of a heart, I am effectively saying that abortions beyond the 21st- 23rd day post conception are unacceptable to me. Keep in mind, most women don’t even realize they’re pregnant until a couple of weeks after that. So in essence, I’m saying if you’re raped, if you’ve had unprotected sex, then you should have the ability to get emergency contraception afterwards. THIS WILL HELP PREVENT abortions that take place after the heart starts beating. Don’t we, as pro-life people, all want that? In an ideal world, there would be no abortions at any time. But we don’t live in an ideal world. So since we know that we don’t live in an ideal world, shouldn’t we ALL be doing what is REASONABLY WITHIN OUR POWER to make sure abortions are as rare as possible after the heart starts beating?

You can believe life begins at the second of conception all you want. But again, you’re not going to stop abortions by believing that. On the other hand, if you can concentrate your outrage on things WITHIN YOUR ACTUAL CONTROL, then you might actually make an impact. That’s what I’m trying to do. I'm promoting emergency contraception. I write about supporting laws that require ultrasounds before abortions. I write about supporting laws that make it more inconvenient to get them. And I’m getting clobbered for it, by people who CANNOT ACCEPT REALITY, and instead waste their time calling me “pro-abortion.”

Ridiculous.

Here's what will blow the minds of the people who are all spazzing out on our FB page. I actually don’t argue the science that demonstrates life begins at conception. I really don’t. But in the context of when abortion is and is not acceptable to me, my line is drawn when the heart starts beating, because I think it’s a far more realistic starting point from which to have the conversation about eliminating abortion than using a starting point of when the cell first splits.

So congratulations to those of you who are convinced you’re better Christians or better conservatives or better people than I am because you refuse to compromise in the slightest. I prefer to live in reality, and to try to talk about changes that are actually POSSIBLE.